10th Annual System Administrator Appreciation Day

jonk689 writes "Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year. This is the day that all fellow System Administrators across the globe will be showered with large piles of cash and expensive sports cars in appreciation of their diligent work. But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do."

Comments

"But we did all the work!"

[raddan]

Yeah, sysadmins get shit on. But hey, we all knew it came with the territory before we got into this job. Part of this is due to the fact that people seem to think that computer run on magic or something, so they have no clue what we do.

As an aside, the IT department at work has kept a running tally on how long it's been since we've been thanked for our work at the company picnic. I've been here for 6 years... nothing yet. Meanwhile, the lowliest assistant gets a mention (and even sometimes [some assistant's] husband or wife, "for moral support").

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[sys.stdout.write]

Yeah. I mean, it'd be easier if they weren't all green from monitor glow.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Brian Gordon]

Here's the more famous homage to sysadmins dealing with lusers :)

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Anonymous Coward]

Computers do run on magic, though.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[vux984]

That's one of my favorites. Its sheer brilliance.

But not because it illustrates the idiocy of the users (which it does) but because in that one IT is completely dysfunctional too. I mean its funny not because I know users like that (and I do), but because I know IT people like that... arrogant, dishonest, totally incompetent...

Its unbelievable (and yet eerily familiar) how bad IT is in that that clip.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[nizo]

I always instill confidence in the user population by loudly declaring, "it's a miracle any of this stuff ever works" as often as possible.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Loko Draucarn]

More accurately, they run on more magic.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[contrapunctus]

As an aside, the IT department at work has kept a running tally on how long it's been since we've been thanked for our work at the company picnic. I've been here for 6 years... nothing yet. Meanwhile, the lowliest assistant gets a mention (and even sometimes [some assistant's] husband or wife, "for moral support").

They haven't paid you in 6 years?

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Brian Gordon]

It's not all IT's fault. Watch part 2 for the kind of stuff he has to deal with from Chip. Part 2 is even better IMO

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[vux984]

Oh I never claimed it was ALL IT's fault, but lets face it...

1) he's playing video games when he should be working, even as the shit is hitting the fan
2) he brings down a website he wasn't supposed to, without any real reason
3) he initially lies about the fact that he brught it down
4) he lies about the fact that he received an email not to reboot it
5) he deletes the sent record of a message from someones exchange box to help him justify the lie he never received it
6) he takes a screenshot of the penis desktop with the intent of posting it online
7) after rearranging the desktop so the user is upset, he fixes it by using the screenshot (making the user 'happy' but leaving the laptop completely unusable)
8) he was also indirectly responsible for bringing down the mail server as well ...

I agree completely that the users were completely worthless too ... they were clueless, ignorant, irrational, demanding, and everything IT loves to make fun of... but IT's behaviour was just as bad. They were not the suffering unthanked heroes here.

I suppose you could say the users got the IT they deserved. :)

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't really blame him for 7 that's exactly what he asked for

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[GeckoAddict]

people seem to think that computer run on magic or something, so they have no clue what we do.

I always thought it ran on the smoke held in by all those little parts! At least, that's what comes out of the parts when it stops working...

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[vux984]

you can't really blame him for 7 that's exactly what he asked for

No he asked for it to be restored to the way it was.

Putting in a picture that looked the way it was but of course didn't work, isn't at all what the user wanted, and the user will be calling back shortly to complain that the "icons" aren't clickable... or perhaps more likely to complain that his mouse button doesn't work anymore.

It was hilarious, don't get me wrong, I laughed my ass off... but it was completely inexcusable behavior and the only reason he gets away with it is that users and management don't actually know they've been duped. But if I were this guys immediate supervisor in IT, I'd laugh my ass off, and then I'd discipline or fire him. I'd have to presume this guys supervisor is a PHB not a competent IT person in their own right.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Anonymous Coward]

I love that video and have to say it made a real impact on my life. Whenever anyone calls with some inane, impossible request, I tell them they can't arrange by penis.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Anonymous Coward]

He did specify "at the company picnic". Maybe his paycheck comes at another time? (Or he actually meant "thanked" and not "reimbursed for service rendered", but whatever.)

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[jerep]

I thought our sysadmin homepage was http://bofh.ntk.net/Bastard.html, this is what im reading all day long every sysadmin day, gives me hope for the next year.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Tubal-Cain]

It's not dead until the fire department says so.

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[davester666]

um, the server's down...

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[bockafer]

Untrue!! http://www.arrangebypenis.com/

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[mevets]

Would the correct protocol be to give a broken electronic gadget in about 6 weeks?

Re:"But we did all the work!"

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't arrange your icons by penis - fucking brilliant

How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Brian Gordon]

It's the least you could do

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[sys.stdout.write]

Actors have the academy awards.
Physicists have the Nobel Prize.
Computer programmers have furry conventions.

Why not give sys admins the same respect?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

The fact that without the servers being up and available, most other professions do not continue to run.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Translation Error]

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

A little extra show of appreciation, especially to someone who often has to work late without warning or come in at odd times and deal with frustrating problems and frustrated people, can go a long way to making a person feel comfortable and, well, appreciated. Treating people nicely, whatever their profession, generally encourages them to go that extra mile for you; saying that you give them a check and they don't deserve an iota more encourage the opposite.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[vertinox]

How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

That's on October 10th.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[snspdaarf]

I trade my time for money. That's why they call it a "job" instead of "fun." And, as a compliment doesn't cost anything, it would be nice to hear once in a while.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Power-plant engineers, electricians, and A/C maintenance folks do not get appreciation days. And without their work, no servers would be up and available.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[DrLang21]

For what the small company I work for pays for IT services, I would gladly take over the contract, half their fee, hire two guys, and pay for most new equipment out of my own pocket.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that without the servers being up and available, most other professions do not continue to run.

But that can be a good thing, especially if you get paid for sitting on your arse while the network admins are freaking out over network shares not being exported.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Corbets]

The fact that without the servers being up and available, most other professions do not continue to run.

Yet without other professions to do the actual work of your company, there's not even a need for you and your servers.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[geekoid]

Believe me, I give the sysadmins the same respect I give furries~

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[geekoid]

Sure, a PERSON goes above anfd beyond and is good at there job should be appreciated.
But not a day where they all are appreciated. That's just stupid, and I suspect it doesn't help moral when the good sysadmin is getting recognized and lumped in with the crap sysadmins.

Of course since there is an appreciation day, there really isn't a reason to appreciate someone for going about and beyond, right?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[royallthefourth]

The fact that without the servers being up and available, most other professions do not continue to run.

Unless you're a developer. In that case, it's better to go ahead and fix it yourself instead of waiting for the sysadmin to try rebooting and then come asking for help.

I guess some of us have better work environments than others :-(

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[HeronBlademaster]

What about all those farmers that the government is paying to not farm? Should we have an appreciation day for them, too?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[dyingtolive]

Actually, most farmers I've known (and there are a few, I'm from non-Chicago Illinois, after all), have more money than they'd care to admit. In fact, to a certain extent, the Government pays them to NOT harvest as much as they can. Nowadays, its more like Farmer breaks a sweat climbing into his closed-top, air conditioned tractor, and Farmer finishes in the black because of the fact that he's only planting corn because that's the 'in' thing nowadays, causing a decrease in cattle-farming which lets us 'enjoy' a carton of eggs at $1.50 and a gallon of milk at $4.00.

Out of curiosity, where do you get your groceries?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[PotatoFarmer]

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

The fact that they're reading your email at this very moment?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[geekoid]

The fact is, without sales guys most corporation stop to run.
Also programmers, DBAs, accounts and a slew of other people.

If garbage isn't collected, cities have a tendency to stop functioning.
Water to, and eletricity, and many other things.

Do yuor job. If you, as a person, aren't appreciated either step up your game or find a new place to work.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Angostura]

I bet you send the guys at the electricity generating station a thank-you every year, don't you? And the guys who run the local silicon fab.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[dyingtolive]

As an afterthought, I did not intend on implying that cattle lay eggs, nor did I wish to imply that decrease in cattle-farming indicates increase in cost of eggs.

Change cattle-farming to livestock-farming above please. Thanks.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

That's on October 10th.

Thank God, I hate memory leaks.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't work at either of those places.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Goldberg's Pants]

I agree entirely. Where's "Poor customer service person who has to deal with your stupid backward ass" appreciation day? Where's Garbage Man Appreciation Day? Mail man? Pretty much every public service industry.

Where the hell is Fire Fighter appreciation day? EMT appreciation day?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Pulse_Instance]

And without a sys-admin the Power-plant engineers, electricians and A/C maintenance folks sit around waiting for the systems to come back online before they start work again. We have reached the time where there are very few major things that happen without a computer controlling it.

I am not a sys-admin I work on software that is used in power plants and a lot of other areas.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[ground.zero.612]

It's the least you could do

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Oh I dunno, maintaining the tools you use to, you know, do work? Also, salaried or hourly pay is compensation, not appreciation.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[dargon]

The fact that we have to deal with idiots on a minute by minute basis and we're not really in a position to tell them to take a hike when they claim that their problem is more important than the 30 other problems we're already working on at the same time.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the least you could do

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Secretaries (admin assistants?) get a day, why can't sys admins?

We're not talking about a ticker tape parade here. Perhaps an "at a boy" and a small cake purchased by the company?

Sheesh. I wasn't expecting some sort of Spanish Inquisition.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Hatta]

What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Who said anything about being *more* deserving of appreciation? Every hard worker deserves some appreciation.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[KodaK]

You assume that other professions don't have "appreciation days" when, in fact, they do. Also, you appear to think that SAs believe that they are more deserving than other professions. While I don't doubt that there are plenty of admins out there that hold an arrogant view like that, I also believe that the majority of professional sysadmins don't. I don't begrudge my boss bosses day, or our administrative assistant's secretaries day. It's just nice to be appreciated.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[ground.zero.612]

It's the least you could do

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Because they know how to bitch better than any other profession? Farmer breaks his back picking rock and bailing hay all day in the sun. Farmer finishes in the red due to market swings. Farmer dies penniless all so we can enjoy a carton of eggs at 47 cents and a gallon of milk at $3.50. But Jesus Christ, the poor sys admins in their air conditioned server rooms that bring us ... that bring us ... super expensive services? Yeah, we gotta have a day for those guys.

You mean services like Internet Service Providers (the system admins that run the systems that connect your computer to the ineterweb), Web Hosting (the system admins that run the websites like, for example, this one ), etc.; that allow you to bitch? I applaud System Admin Appreciation Day and look forward to the first and subsequent annual Anonymous Coward Troll Hatred Days.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Power-plant engineers, electricians and A/C maintenance folks were there before computer was invented.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[grasshoppa]

How about the anti-appreciation we get the rest of the year?

"Come on, all you do all day is play on the internet anyway"
"It's not like you guys don't read my email"
"What do you mean you won't fix my home computer?"
"You nerds are all alike, all technical skill no personality"

Besides, it's not as if secretaries, maintenance workers and bosses don't already have their own day. ( April 21, Oct 2, Oct 16 )

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Power-plant engineers, electricians, and A/C maintenance folks do not get appreciation days.

That's because the electrician and A/C maintenance guy (of rather HVAC engineer if you want) quite often IS the sysadmin.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[lorenlal]

Unless you're a developer. In that case, it's better to go ahead and fix it yourself instead of waiting for the sysadmin to try rebooting and then come asking for help. I guess some of us have better work environments than others

Unless you're a sysadmin who's getting a call from a developer because they *think* they know what's wrong and "fixed" the problem, yet their software isn't working...

Sorry, this is a bit of a raw and recently reopened wound for me...

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[ajlitt]

So those computers that run those services are powered and cooled by unicorn flatulence, right?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[royallthefourth]

I think computer professionals of all types can agree that there is nothing more frustrating than dealing with another techie that has no clue what he's doing.

It makes us all look bad and depresses salaries.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[93,000]

Many farmers do very well -- you are correct. However people don't necessarily have an accurate perception of what a farmer is. People tend to want to cling to the archetype of the dirt on the hands, god fearing, simple man trying to provide for his family. So when people hear of good times for farmers, there is this perception of this dumb, lucky rube sitting on a pile of money.

The farmers who do well today (and to reiterate, yes, many do very well) aren't farmers in the traditional sense as much as they are businessmen. It's a changed world and quite complex. The days of 'sell at harvest and hope for a good price' are long gone. Nowadays they are buying inputs for a crop they wont plant for another 18 months while they are still working to market crop from the year before, all while raising the current year's crop. It's a numbers game more than it is a 'jump in the tractor and go to work' game.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[period3]

It's the least you could do

What, paying you isn't enough? What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Umm, root?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I'm a sysadmin and I've never understood why others in IT think they deserve special thanks or praise. They are just doing their job like everyone else. Or those IT guys that think they're smarter than the lawyers when they go help someone out in the legal department. If you were so smart than maybe you should've gone to law school rather than get your cert at the local CC!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[nizo]

I did not intend on implying that cattle lay eggs...

Actually though, this would be awesome! We need animals that give milk, lay eggs, and produce a variety of meat parts (bacon, steak, etc) that grow and fall off for easy harvesting. Why is the chicken/cow/pig hybrid not a reality in this day and age? My proposed name for this perfect beast is the wonderful Chowig btw.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just described every job in the world. I still don't see how sys admin is any more specialer. However, they probably have more education than a garbageman. But is being appreciated and respected a property of a person's character or intelligence? Or both?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Pulse_Instance]

Yes, Unicorn Flatulence.... Or more typically another power source so that your control systems are not dependent on the thing that you are controlling.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[nizo]

That's right; sysadmins are part of a team of people required to keep the business running smoothly. But how many other folks in the company need to get up at 3am to do their jobs? Many sales guys have an emergency sales meeting at 3am? How about the secretary, does he get paged and need to come in with no notice so he can file some documents at 3am? Not many other professions would put up with the lack of resources and total ignorance of planning that a sysadmin puts up with all the time. Yet since the sysadmin isn't doing anything that can have a simple metric applied to it (number of sales closed, number of documents filed), people just assume they aren't doing anything useful.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[teknosapien]

so then we should ditch administrative assistant day also ?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[ZorinLynx]

>Computer programmers have furry conventions.

So do sysadmins! :) Some of us even do admin work for them.

Not me; the day I do my day job at a convention will be the day I start running Windows as my main operating system.

(I actually know more admins in the fandom than programmers. Figure that...)

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[ajlitt]

Oh, so you mean the grid power provided by a plant 300 miles away that's built and maintained by power-plant engineers, electricians, and A/C maintenance folks with control systems monitored by sysadmins?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymusing]

Now there is an under-appreciated profession: unicorn flatulence collection!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Sir_Lewk]

Well without car mechanics I'd be willing to say that after a while a good number of all of those guys wouldn't even be able to get into work!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[mpoulton]

Not many other professions would put up with the lack of resources and total ignorance of planning that a sysadmin puts up with all the time.

What, you think lack of planning and resources are somehow unique to IT? News flash: every aspect of most businesses is run right on the edge of inadequacy. It's the right way, usually. Excess resource availability is a wasteful expense. It is more cost effective to make people do their jobs with scarce resources and at the limit of their capabilities (and occasionally suffer the consequences of that) than it is to make sure everyone is comfy and supplied with everything they think they need and only made to do what they are confident in. There are some limited exceptions to this (like certain aspects of medical care, cutting-edge research, or technical manufacturing) where the consequences of failure are so high that the expense of underutilized resources is justified to ensure a good result, but that is not the case for most aspects of most businesses.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[plague3106]

Since there are Secretary's day, Boss's Day, Inventors' Day, etc.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[silanea]

While you do have a point, sys admins are among those people whom the "ordinary" employee only ever notices when something does not work. They do not (usually) contribute to new products, they do not (usually) get you sales, so unless your network share is not there or your build server is down you have little need to directly interact with them. The result is that many people forget about who enables them to do their job. Sys admins receive far more abuse relative to praise than other fields, or so has been my experience so far. And the time when the amount of digits on the paycheck made up for this are long gone in most companies.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[evilviper]

Yet without other professions to do the actual work of your company, there's not even a need for you and your servers.

I've setup MANY systems specifically designed to replace 100 people, performing time-consuming tasks, with 1 guy hitting a few buttons and moving some paper around.

If that guy didn't exist, I could do that job myself, in-between other tasks.

My company has other employees, of course, but certain companies can be almost COMPLETELY automated by computers, and some entire industries have disappeared because of it.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[ajlitt]

Real sysadmins never have to leave the house. Engineers & maintenance folk aren't usually so lucky.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[eosp]

Obligatory...

Sheesh. I wasn't expecting some sort of Spanish Inquisition.

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[NoName Studios]

Try being a system administrator and a furry!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[atomic-penguin]

Sysadmin's don't worry about garbage collectors, that's a developer's job.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[baegucb]

When I was growing up in Canada, the garbage man got something on Boxing day, in appreciation for his work. Also the butcher got a bottle of his favorite booze in appreciation for the large quantities of scraps and bones he saved for our dogs during the year.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[cthulu_mt]

Exactly! I'm not a Sys Admin or even in the IT department but I got called in one night at about 2am to help. Once was enough for me.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[nizo]

...where the consequences of failure are so high...

So is spending $3,000 to cool a room full of servers a reasonable expenditure? Especially when that room full of servers is failing due to heat, taking down company email, web, and file shares, and possibly damaging 30-40 thousand dollars worth of equipment? I've had bosses quibble over things even more idiotic than this, believe me. And then the higher ups wonder why things are broken, and why haven't you finished all your other projects? while pleas for $3,000 to fix the problem fall on deaf ears. Hey, we already spent $40,000 on computer stuff before you got here, why do you need $3,000 more???

  It's like telling the secretary she gets $50 to furnish her new office space, and she shows up and there is just a big empty spot on the floor. And yet somehow this is widely seen as ok.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Baloo Uriza]

I hate to break it to you, but if you're a sysadmin and not a furry, something is wrong with you.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[geekoid]

Jokes on you. My job is fun.

Does a compliment once a year that goes to the profession in general really matter?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[failedtoinit]

Al Gore, is that you?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[tnk1]

There are already two. The days we change the time for Daylight Savings Time, farmers are definitely on my mind.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

HAY! What about us SysAdmins who have to program in what should be our 'play video games because everything is kosher' time...? c'mon now. We deserve uber-speshul attenshun!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, you're a non-sysadmin right ?

So you're peeved that some idiotic guy charges five times what you earn per hour, to "fix" the exchange server once a month. Right ?

I'll concede that most I.T. guys I've known are utterly useless two-faced ass-covering lying imbeciles, but that can be said of any industry. The few good ones, on the other hand, are worth every penny. Here's what an I.T. guy has to do:

1. Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot and maintain a bunch of hardware and software systems
2. Learn how to deal with non-technical clients
3. STAY UP TO DATE WITH #1 and #2

As a sysadmin, when I visit a client's site, I might spend 2-3 hours on-site, but the knowledge I'm channeling comes from hundreds of hours of study and practice. The fact that I can identify a problem by asking plain-english questions to a non-technical user, that I can figure out when they say "hard drive" they mean "system chassis", and when they say "the web site is down" they're really telling me the cleaning lady accidentally unplugged the keyboard... that distillation of knowledge, experience and communication skills is why we charge so much.

Do you think Lawyers should make $10/hour like your average McDonalds manager ? After all, the only thing they have to do is stand in court and chit-chat with the judge...

THAT is why the world needs a sysadmin appreciation day. You cocky bastards think you're so smart you can do our jobs, but in reality our jobs exist BECAUSE you can't do what we do, and when you try to, you fuck things up worse. Respect our separation of roles, quit treating I.T. staff like inferior beings and you just might find that sysadmin guy ain't such a jerk after all. Respect, much like hatred, is a two-way thing in this business.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

That argument is a dead end. Not insightful.

Without all of the other reasons the professionals need the servers, there are others that also need them. Say if the google servers go down. Not only will google suffer but the dependent users and other third party positions that utilize those informational sources.

Now the other extreme, say your companies servers go down, you will be unable to log in to your computer if it is a domain. You will be unable to get into outlook since exchange is down. (assuming a windows environment here since it's easier for other non sys admins to fix)

We haven't even gotten into the backup proceedures and data management yet. Even database admins need the servers to have redundant power supplies, raid and offsite backups or the data they manipulate will be gone. Now do you think that they will manage these things and keep everything running smoothly if their SQL box goes down?

So saying that " without other professions to do the actual work of your company, there's not even a need for you and your servers."

It's kind of like saying that without people to need air, what's the purpose of air?
It's not just a direct link to the professional people inside a company, it's all the interwoven ties outside the company and all of the consumers and all of the people who use the data that relies or comes from those servers ten steps away that are effected.

You order a book from amazon: you went through your local ISP routing servers, the backbone of the internet, their local ISP, their servers, their credit card processing servers, your banks servers, the shipping company servers, etc...

come on. Someone keeps all these things talking together and the first time you can't access your online banking site you complain. When do you say thanks. Just a thanks, good job keeping these things up with more regularity than most people do in their jobs. We're on call all the time and expected to keep it all up with five nines since that's what gets advertised to the managers.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[billcopc]

Money is not a substitute for respect. Money might buy you fancy cars and mail-order brides but it can't repair the daily ego damage of dealing with ungrateful users. There is also a non-negligible group of people for whom money is not a motivator. We're not starving, in fact most sysadmins could get higher paying jobs elsewhere with less stress, as many do after years of abuse. I've seen countless techies retrain into the plumbing or electrical fields. Same skill set, same or better money, less bullshit.

How would you like it if every single one of your clients blamed their every problem on you while yelling obscenities, claiming they are the most important person you'll ever meet and criticizing your supposed lack of intellect to everyone within earshot or email ? Repeat this for 6 to 12 hours a day, then throw in a few conference calls each week, where multiple users and their bosses tag-team you with the same selfish hysteric drivel. Then once a month or so, have someone's secretary shove or slap you in frustration, because she "needs" to print that email in the next 2 minutes even though it's been sitting in her inbox since last tuesday, and she thinks physical bullying will make the problem go away faster.

All this bullshit so you can perform in your completely useless jobs and collect your completely undeserved pay, and yet you can't even spare the breath to say "Thank you, mr computer guy"... A tiny gesture that can almost make up for the verbal abuse and the headaches you give us every single goddamned day. Do you yell at your doctor / lawyer / accountant / secretary ? Why not ? Why us and not them ? Why do we have to take your shit, just because we happen to be technology workers ?

A simple "Thank you" to defuse a ticking time bomb, and still you complain.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

What makes you more deserving of appreciation than any other profession?

Who said anything about being *more* deserving of appreciation? Every hard worker deserves some appreciation.

Yup, it's called Labor Day.

Get back to work. My internet is sluggish and I expect it fixed within the hour!

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[yargnad]

Well, you guys get the Union. I would trade an appreciation day for a collective bargaining and job security any day.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[yargnad]

I guess some of us have better work environments than others :-(

Yeah maybe we do because the developers I know suffer anxiety attacks if asked to click on something outside of the IDE. They only know frameworks and code patterns, ask them to use the app they are tasked to build and the shit hits the fan.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[DrLang21]

Actually it's more like 16x what I make, I'm not peeved about it, and it's not "some idiotic guy" (thank you for insulting IT staff that you know nothing about). We contract IT service from a full IT team. I have little other than praise for the IT help that we have. However, for the scale of our company and what we genuinely need, what we have is excessive. We need IT because the people here who have the knowledge to keep our networks running are too busy with their primary duties to deal with it. Only hundreds of hours of study and practice? You must be new since a full time job should have you working about 2,000 hours a year, almost all of which should be a learning and refining experience in some way or another.

I never have treated IT like inferior beings and I get along just fine with the IT guys I have worked with. Though thanks to your hot headed response, I might change my tune. Perhaps I don't know them as well as I thought I did.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[DrLang21]

The point is that the system is a team. IT is no more or less important than the functions of a company that produce, design, and sell their product. If any member of the team is not being appreciated on a daily basis, then that company is running inefficiently and the stock holders should be raising hell.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

No, the point is that the people who know how to make the integral parts of the system that glues all of the other positions together and lets it function, should be getting as much recognition on a company wide basis as say, the secratary. Who has an appreciation day.

To say that the people who spend years carefully crafting systems that have contradictory requirements and multiple departmental roles are just and only as important as every other department in a company is overly idealistic. Yes, everybody should be equally appreciated. But that's not the real world and you should be ashamed of using that fallacy of an argument on slashdot.

The point is that there are people that get blamed if something goes wrong but not congradulated if everything works perfectly for months on end. There are jobs out there that the sole purpose is to make it seem like the position is not needed by making the system have no problems on the user side. There are jobs where people work until the 7am hours of the morning monday so that everybody can come in and not notice that the entire server cluster has been moved to a new version since the old one had security holes and Microsoft released an updated OS.

Saying things like:
"IT is no more or less important than the functions of a company that produce, design, and sell their product."

Is like going to your boss and saying that their job is no more or less important than the custodial crew and why are they compensated so much more than them.

You really think you'll have a job if they don't think you're joking?
Are you that out of touch with the real world that you think that those idealistic arguments hold any water?

The stock holders know nothing about what OS service pack or Linux Kernel the servers are running. They see the reports of other departments sometimes blaming the IT department for downtime or cost overruns. Unforseen increases of budget, without the explination of what worm, patch, or user error caused the initial problem.

This is the problem with the industry. The whole job of the sysadmin is to make him/herself not seen. To make it look like the systems are fine and running smoothly. Any reports that there are problems are like any other department reporting that something they are doing broke and is going to cost the company money. Like the marketing department comming the the president and saying that the next few weeks are going to be problematic because the graphics department is not working on new designes since they all need to be replaced with designers with faster fingers so in the future they won't be too slow.

There's usually no middleground between the IT department having a problem and the boss/users seeing it immediatly. It doesn't get to go the the IT manager and get fixed at that level. Everybody sees or hears about the problem when it happens. Very publicly. But when was the last time you heard anybody say that the IT department at your work did a good job upgrading or migrating a server?

You are probably just as guilty of widening the devide between departmental appreciation.
Most businesses that are not completely computer centric are guilty of this. Since I know quite a few sysadmins and I haven't heard that any of their jobs were appreciative, I'd say that your statements and theirs help to prove that this day is not even given the lip service it was intended to create. Is it too hard for you people to admit that the ones who make everything easier should get a little nod, instead, we get the arguments and belittling that our jobs are just the same as everybody elses.

Walk a mile in our shoes.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes that is correct but also remember that without Sys Admins there will not be much of an internet.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Brian Gordon]

Maybe redirecting people to a waiting room while you sit at your desk playing flash games, requiring appointments, and taking forever will confuse people into respecting you. Actually rushing to do your job properly is so service industry.

Also if some random secretary is acting like that, just tell her "you can wait a few minutes; it sat in your inbox for a week".. not like she can fire you. And physical blows? Yeah right. I can't even imagine that. "I! NEED! MY! EMAIL! NOW! ROARRR! *punch* *slap* *combo*".

You know what's actually helped me though? Believe it or not, it's watching every Ari Gold video on YouTube. Just search and start watching. People positively wilt if you just act important and impatient. If they smell blood, they'll attack, like what happens in your conference calls. As soon as you grasp the problem give them a results-oriented rundown of what you're going to do to resolve the complaints and finish it off dismissively like "OK the longer you keep me here the longer it'll be before I can fix this". Don't let them go on and on with blame, just say "yeah I got it, I will do X with Y as soon as I resolve your other Z", reiterating what you're going to do to get the results they want. Watch the Entourage videos for confidence and go get em tiger. Start with this one, it's one of my favorites.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[DrLang21]

I don't like your attitude. You think the Quality Assurance department gets congratulated when federal regulators don't decide to cite violations? You think the equipment engineers get congratulated when their systems don't breakdown on high volume three shifts per day production lines? You think the hospital systems engineer gets congratulated when their nurse alarm systems don't fail resulting in patient death? Where is the manufacturing appreciation day? The product development engineer appreciation day? If you don't find much satisfaction in facilitating a high efficiency or high reliability system, maybe you should consider why you went into IT to begin with.

Occasionally we all will be thanked for a success (or at least I should hope). But for the most part all of our successes are seen as expected outputs from what we are employed to do. That applies to janitors all the way to managers. Some jobs are higher paid because they require special expertise, experience, and/or higher responsibility.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

Places I've worked in the past had a simple rule for developers: you can have admin permissions. You can do what you want. If you break it, you fix it. If you break it and need us the fix it, you'd better not break it again. If you break it by doing something stupid, you'd be asked to make a small donation to a charity once we fix it. If you consistently break things, you'll have your admin permissions curtailed.

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[dindi]

In Central America (I live now in Costa Rica) there is no daylight savings.

Why? When they tried to introduce it, it simply did not work with the farmers.

It is daylight from 5:30-18:00 here, and when you try to tell to people that now they have to go and feed the animals in the dark, or try to get animals to the fields in the dark .... well .... you will have angry farmers who will refuse the change. And then there are people who are used to be up from 5:00 till like 9-10pm.... Tell them to start the day in total darkness instead of dusk....

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Anonymous Coward]

those people get paid twice what your average run of the mill sysadmin gets paid, for work that is less stressful and demanding.

what does a master electrician cost at 3:00 in the morning, huh?

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Romancer]

Kinda the point of your argument. You don't like my attitude but won't even admit my point of view exists as a rational response to the environment my position requires. You don't even allow for the experiences of the other posters to mean that what we are going through exists since you haven't been there at those jobs. Couldn't you at least think for a second that there are jobs out there that are designed to be unseen and that are at the same time, very important in an immediate sense. That others couldn't step in and do if needed within a company.

So let's take a look at where you are coming from:

"You think the Quality Assurance department gets congratulated when federal regulators don't decide to cite violations"

If they have a good year and meet their goals, yes I think they get congratulated. They should, I hate bad products as much as anybody. The QA department at my work does get the praise when they have no issues. They get an award that they had no problems with the quality control system and no systems had to be recalled or modified after production. It saved the company so much money that they got a freakin party.

"You think the equipment engineers get congratulated when their systems don't breakdown on high volume three shifts per day production lines?"

I think that it's not one person in charge of those machines and they have layers between the engineers and the actual production machines that are built by seperate manufacturing companies that may warranty their products. If a machine fails on the line multiple people are responsible for the maintenance, upkeep, usage and design. It's not all on one person's shoulders. I also think that if a company has a long run of uptime on a line then the employees see a reward. I haven't personally worked on a line but I do think that they occasionally get a pizza party if they do well for a year. I have worked near the line maintenance crew and the boss would take the guys out for a beer or get them gift certificates to the movies if they worked hard to get a machine back up quickly.

"You think the hospital systems engineer gets congratulated when their nurse alarm systems don't fail resulting in patient death?"

I do think that those systems are infinitely less complex and require much less daily weekly and monthly updates, patches, repairs and redesigns. I am not trying to minimize the importance of those systems and the necessity that they be kept working, or even the responsibilities that those people have, but I do think that they are a hell of a lot more static in their use than the servers you are trying to compare them to. They have a lot fewer security updates pushed out by the manufacturer and much less of a load on them from day to day users. Less change and less complexity lend to less problems and less downtime. I do agree though that if one failed it would look pretty bad but again it isn't about just the negative. I have heard of those systems saving lives and the staff, as well as the systems and their designers are in the paper or on the company newsletter that month if it was a heroic event. I have saved the companies millions of dollars and other sysadmins have probably saved lives by keeping systems running or getting them back on line in time for the hospitals and emergency rooms but it's all on the back end. There's a tenuous connection at best in the minds of the management. But that connection is as solid as any other piece of the puzzle and the recognition is missing since the understanding isn't important to the rest of the departments. It just has to work for them to do their jobs. We as system admins have to understand what all the departments want and give them the ability to do as close to that as physically possible but they don't try and understand the hurdles and complexities that are required to get them those services.

"Where is the manufacturing appreciation day?"

They have jobs where if one person doesn't show up to work the business keeps going if something goes wrong on the

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Jake Griffin]

Well that makes sense because close to the equator, there is not as significant change in the daylight as closer to the poles...

Re:How about a garbage collector appreciation day?

[Jake Griffin]

Where's "Poor customer service person who has to deal with your stupid backward ass" appreciation day? Where's Garbage Man Appreciation Day? Mail man? (4th of Feb) Where the hell is Fire Fighter appreciation day? EMT appreciation day?

Consolation Prize!

[Aldenissin]

If you haven't been there, then this is for you! http://www.thewebsiteisdown.com/

Re:Consolation Prize!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to go to that site, but I couldn't find the link to the internet on my desktop. Some idiot web guy arranged my icons :(

Re:Consolation Prize!

[cfryback]

Even funnier is the http://www.arrangebypenis.com/ for Windows users.....

I'm part of the chior!

[Thyamine]

Yep, yep, yep... wait, let me just grab my dictionary.... hmmmmmm...

why post this in the afternoon?

[Anonymous Coward]

I never remember. and every year you post it in the afternoon. how can i take my team to lunch if lunch is over.

STEP UP SLASHDOT!

Piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do.

Why should you get a gift for doing your job like everyone else does?

Re:Piss off

[drsquare]

Yeah, computer janitors have pretty big egos for people who aren't even clever enough to be programmers.

Re:Piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do.

Why should you get a gift for doing your job like everyone else does?

You shouldn't. Your a squid.

Re:Piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous cowards have jobs? I though all they did was post on slashdot while waiting for Mom to tell them it's time for supper.

Yeah, I'll be there in a minute, keep yer panties on!

Re:Piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

For the same reason you leave Santa milk and cookies.

Oh, *you* didn't leave any snacks for Santa, that's right. No wonder you're a manager.

Re:Piss off

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet you don't tip your waitress either. How's your water taste?

Summary of the Article

[neonprimetime]

Sysadmins setup the web server to host www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins setup the networks that allow you to view www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins protect your networks to make sure you're really viewing www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins make backups of www.sysadminday.comin case it has issues.
Sysadmins ensure there is no viruses on the www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins wakeup at 2am to reboot the servers and ensure www.sysadminday.com is up.
Sysadmins would will gladly help you navigate to www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins really just want a friend, but if that's not possible they are satisfied with you going to www.sysadminday.com
Sysadmins would also be very happy if you post a link to www.sysadminday.com on other sites

Re:Summary of the Article

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Let's show our appreciation on this special day by slashdotting their servers....

Re:Summary of the Article

[Xtifr]

The rant above assumes I have any interest in visiting sysadminday.com, but we'll gloss over that for the moment. :)

Sysadmins setup the web server to host www.sysadminday.com

A web server that was created by developers.

Sysadmins setup the networks that allow you to view www.sysadminday.com

If you mean the physical infrastructure, then no; otherwise, yes, using the software created by developers for that purpose.

Sysadmins protect your networks to make sure you're really viewing www.sysadminday.com

ITYM "try to protect", and again, using software created by developers.

Sysadmins make backups of www.sysadminday.com

By running scripts and applications created by developers (and hardware provided by...another kind of developers).

Sysadmins ensure there is no viruses on the www.sysadminday.com

ITYM "try to ensure", and again, using software created by developers, assuming that the sysadmins or their bosses were foolish enough to select virus-prone software in the first place. (Otherwise, they try to ensure it by selecting or installing systems which aren't virus-prone, the solution used by my company.)

Sysadmins wakeup at 2am to reboot the servers and ensure www.sysadminday.com is up

That one I'll give you, although if it still has problems after rebooting, who do the admins call? That's right--the developers.

Sysadmins would will gladly help you navigate to www.sysadminday.com

Using software created by developers.

Sysadmins really just want a friend, but if that's not possible they are satisfied with you going to www.sysadminday.com

In my experience, I have to say I think you're overgeneralizing, but some admins are friendly enough. Others follow the advice of the BOFH, though...
(I'm tempted to inject something here about "some of my best friends are...", but I'll resist the urge.) :)

Sysadmins would also be very happy if you post a link to www.sysadminday.com on other sites

Except for the ones that have enough sense not to support link-spamming. :)

So, as near as I can figure it, sysadmins should be worshipping the ground I walk on. Yet that doesn't seem to be happening. Oh well, maybe I'll take one out for a beer later in any case.

Re:Summary of the Article

[clone53421]

Sysadmins would also be very happy if you post a link to www.sysadminday.com on other sites

Unless that results in their server being slashdotted at 2am...

Re:Summary of the Article

[Vancorps]

In my experience sysadmins and developers have a symbiotic relationship as you most likely didn't program that operating system that your web service runs on.

Just yesterday our developer and myself had to come up with a deployment strategy that had to allow for some funky activity that most security mechanisms wouldn't allow. So we came up with a solution that actually made our environment more secure while allowing him to deploy his service. Without me he'd never be able to publish the application that the entire company uses and without my backups protecting us from data-loss there would be no need for the application. Without the developer there would be no database to support nor application so we need each other. As a result, he defers to me for sysadmin stuff and I defer to him for debugging and it works out rather nicely. We'll even have beers together without the need for the special day.

In my mind sysadmins are only unappreciated by those that don't know anything about computers or technology. This group of people is rapidly shrinking because people that do have computer skills can do their jobs a lot faster and much more efficiently. They understand my position and feel free to chat me up about problems they are experiencing knowing that I'll take it under advisement and take care of it as soon as I can. It doesn't have to be adversarial. The only people I consistently have problems with are marketing people because they aren't concerned with real metrics. They would rather take hit counts from my site because it shows in the billions neglecting the much more accurate and thus much more likely to generate repeat customers visitor count. My visitor count is in the millions so it's not a bad figure to work with either and it's much more honest. They look at us like we don't make any money for the company neglecting the fact that building an environment that can sustain heavy traffic is what got them the numbers to work in the first place. Few other people make that mistake and realize that if the servers aren't running no money gets made and in return we recognize that our servers would have nothing to do if the sales guys weren't doing their jobs, and the guest services people weren't doing theirs. When you're part of the same company it should be viewed as being on the same team. Too many work environments allow departmental rivalries that only serve to make a company inefficient.

Re:Summary of the Article

[geedra]

Developers also wrote the code that crashed the server in the first place and causes all kinds of other problems on a daily basis. Way to go, guys.

Technically...

[peacefinder]

System Administrators get no respect at least 364 days a year.

Stop the madness

[geekoid]

these stupid I need to be recognized for my job class days need to end.

How about you do your job the best you can and stop whining?

Re:Stop the madness

[apoc.famine]

We did, until the internet showed up. Now EVERYONE can beg for attention. Triple points if you work in a profession which requires some web-savviness, since you can leverage that into a bigger cry for attention.
 
Look, I've been tech support and a SA, I've relied on tech support and the SA. I do my job, you do your job. I thank you for doing your job well, you thank me for doing my job well.
 
If this isn't your work climate, LEAVE! Get yourself a job where people appreciate your work, and you appreciate theirs. It's not some magical fantasy-land. Stop wallowing in shit, and then demanding thanks for it.
 
If you need a "day" for your position, then you're being treated like shit. Get a new job.

Pet Peeve

[oldhack]

So... what are your (SA's) top 10 that get under your skin? Especially dealing with users?

Re:Pet Peeve

[rAiNsT0rm]

Users are generally the least of our problems.

1. Management/bosses that have no grasp of technology but need to look like they do to stay employed.
2. Middle management who see their role as web-surfing and bare minimum work because they have people under them to do it all.
3. Underfunding
4. Being forced into unrealistic timetables and deadlines
5. Being expected to be on-call 24x7 with no extra pay or time off
6. Being afraid to speak up ever because the response will always be, "OK, then get on that"
7. Expectations that off-the-shelf software will always magically be a perfect fit with every feature needed
8. Wanton disregard for company property. Cookies mashed in a laptop, 12 broken cell phones a year, etc.
9. Re-infecting your computer the day it comes back to you from being reimaged due to viruses/spyware
10. Disrespect and unprofessionalism from anyone (users or management)

Re:Pet Peeve

[thatskinnyguy]

1. "I can't remember my password."
2. CAPS is on. That's why you can't log in.
3. I have better things to do than to see everything you do on the internet. Stop being so damn paranoid.
4. "We want a system that does all of these whiz-bang things, but we don't want to pay for it."
5. User walks into my office and says "How many memories do I need to install Windows 95 to my motherboard?" [The answer is 72MB but a rather uneducated question]
6. I absolutely hate when users ask for inane changes to Group Policy without understanding that it affects everyone.
7. People who assume setting-up a WoW server on company property is OK.
8. Restoring accidentally deleted files from backups and then the user still complains about how much of their work ISNT in the snapshot.
9. Other admins who use new technology (often buggy) just for the sake of using it and really have no clue that the current way of doing things works.
10. Users who read the forbidden texts and know enough to be dangerous.

Re:Pet Peeve

[Anonymous Coward]

Dealing with users.

Re:Pet Peeve

[VJ42]

Users who read the forbidden texts and know enough to be dangerous.

Treat these people well, and they will take care of basic IT support for their departent. Just think of all all the dumb "Help me with $MSOfficeApp" calls you'd be getting if that person wasn't dealing with them instead. I know because I could be classed into falling into the category you describe. If I didn't work there the IT getting almost twice as many calls from my department as they currently do, most of them to do with Word double line spacing or similar. Even harder things that I "shouldn't" be able to fix, I can. We've not had MS Office 2007 installed yet, but occasionally a docx document will find it's way to me or my colleagues, Elsewhere in my organisation, this means a call\email to IT to get them to convert it. For me and my department it means opening it with portable Open office from my memory stick. Sure, I've not asked permission (they do know; they turn a blind eye) to use portable apps, but I know that it saves me, my department and IT time, and as long as it doesn't leave a trace on the host PC IT or breach network security they shouldn't have a problem.

Re:Pet Peeve

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could install the converter pack...

Re:Pet Peeve

[ivan256]

Except for numbers 8 and 9, you've described every individual contributor type job from McDonalds cashier up to senior engineer. (Some of those people get extra pay for being called in, but the same goes for system administrators. And as an experienced former system administrator, I will say unequivocally that if you're getting called in during the night very often, you're doing it wrong.)

Re:Pet Peeve

[VJ42]

Or you could install the converter pack...

We can't install anything (hence my "leave no trace on the host PC" comment) on out PCs without the permission of IT (for good reason; most people here are bareley computer literate. I work outside the IT industry). The IT dept. are over worked and understaffed, To reimage every computer in the organisation for that rare ocasion when a docx file gets emailed to you from outside would be overkill, especially when they're now in the process of upgradeing office anyway.

As your reward

[Anonymous Coward]

You get to come into work on Saturday!

365.25

[mseeger]

Let's face it, System Administrators get no respect 364 days a year

Let's face it and make it 365 or 365.249 days in an average year.

CU, Martin

Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[Garbad Ropedink]

My sysadmin tattled on me when I played a prank on a co-worker by changing his wallpaper to look like his computer had an error. The admin took half a second to figure out what was wrong. Then he went off and told my manager and they sent out a company wide email saying that the sysadmin was owed an apology. I've also had a number of run ins with previous sysadmins. Blocking web access randomly and refusing to allow me to change my mouse to left handed mode.

I think it would work better as a holiday if we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day. Maybe burn a few effigies.

I know there are probably a lot of sysadmins on this website so I didn't post anonymously because I know how you people take such pleasure in getting your petty petty revenges. So that's my gift to you on your special day. :)

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[Anonymous Coward]

So you think wasting the sysadmin's time with non-existent problems is OK? I like a good prank as much as the next guy, but If I set off a mentos and coke bomb in a co-worker's office, I'd fully expect the janitor to be pissed at me.

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[beheaderaswp]

LOL...

I would have fired you on the spot.

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[Anonymous Coward]

My sysadmin tattled on me when I played a prank on a co-worker by changing his wallpaper to look like his computer had an error. The admin took half a second to figure out what was wrong. Then he went off and told my manager

Billable time -- your sysadmin has to justify what he does to the management, because management don't understand what a sysadmin does enough to just sign paychecks without asking for reports.

So from your description, he had to make a trip to deal with a User Equipment Down call. He found out it was a prank, and properly reported the problem -- unprofessional staff behavior -- to the people in charge of dealing with unprofessional behavior.

I like your choice of language -- the sysadmin "tattled". Right... /who/ was being childish there? Add the rest of your post and it sounds like you've got a chip on your shoulder about sysadmins that forms the tone of relationship.

If you want to have a little fun with your mates at work, go ahead. But if other departments have to clean it up, you've overstepped. What you should have done is been right there to have the laugh with your buddy about the prank the moment it happened. Failing that, you definitely should have apologized to the support staff for dealing the overspill. Professional courtesy and teamwork is not a one-way street.

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[squallbsr]

I especially hate it when they block websites, I came in to find that *FLICKR* is now blocked... I can understand Youtube and porn sites, but flickr?!

They do make it hard to love them sometimes...

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[Garbad Ropedink]

One minute out of work where the solution was 'change your wallpaper' is not comparable to having to clean up an entire office covered in pop.

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[buysse]

If you really think the sysadmin is making the decision to block flickr, I (hope and expect) you're wrong. Generally, it's some asshole who's spending his day looking up nudists on flickr, someone else sees the monitor and complains, and because the asshole is the manager's nephew/golf buddy, the problem is that flickr.com was allowed -- tell the sysadmins to block it.

Even without that contrived scenario, if they're using a third-party service for the filter, like websense, you block a category -- porn, blogs, social networking, sports, gambling, etc. Because flickr has plenty of NSFW images, filters may include it in the porn category, as well as social networking (comments, friends, etc.)

If the filter is blocking it by default, in a non-work-related category (porn), how will you justify *un*blocking it?

-30-

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[buysse]

It's not "one minute out of work."

You're focused on a large, complex problem. Someone interrupts you, and you have to go deal with them. When you get back to the large, complex problem, you lose a lot of time figuring out where you were and picking up the pieces of the troubleshooting.

That's not even factoring in that your co-worker called the help desk, someone there had a write a ticket, send it to a deskside support person, who had to leave their desk, come down, and do the "one minute" fix. Total time? Probably more like 30 minutes where your co-worker wasn't working.

I agree with one of the other posters -- I would have had *your* ass. Sending an email to the entire company to apologize to the tech? That's a cannon to kill a gnat -- but don't forget that you're the gnat, asshole.

Re:Maybe we could couple it with Guy Fawkes day

[Anonymous Coward]

oblig. http://4gifs.com/gallery/d/76274-1/Janitor.png

A nice token gift and some public acknowledgment?

[exley]

Actually, the least I could do is nothing.

Technical Difficulties

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Gordon:

Due to technical difficulties, you're account has been deleted. To get a new account with all of your previous settings, please email sysadmin@slashdot.org. Also include the copy of the full-page advertisement thanking your sys admin for being such a wonderful, brilliant, handsome man or beautiful woman, and that you will be taking him or her out to lunch for the next 364 days,

Thank you.

My guys really hooked us up.

[Anonymous Coward]

Breakfast taco's... Brownies and Cookies.... About a dozen breakfast taco's. Of course I've been hounding them for a month.

I've got really bad news for you IT guys and gals

[Overzeetop]

This just cements you in place as being very low on the corporate totem pole. Every hear CEO appreciation day? Management appreciation day? Doctor appreciation day? Engineer appreciation day (engineer's day in India doesn't count)? Lawyer appreciation day?

No?

How about teacher appreciation day? Secretary (or, ahem, administrative assistant) appreciation day? See where I'm going with this? I wouldn't take this as a compliment.

Pitty Reply

[Anonymous Coward]

You want a system administrator appreciation day? Why because you keep the computers running?

 
 

Why not a Wastewater Treatment Plant Operator day? We have to deal with your shit day in and day out. We remove it from the water and dispose of it, all while trying to keep odors down and releasing cleaner water back into rivers/bays so you can go boating or fishing?

Why don't we have these days in appreciation for us? Because then someone else will b*tch about government workers making too much money. So to you System Administrator, please STFU and move along. You're no more special than anyone else.

Re:Pitty Reply

[Jake Griffin]

You had 30 minutes of national appreciation when Mike Rowe went into your plant and took on your job for a day on "Dirty Jobs"... I don't see him doing that for system administrators...

Needs to be grouped with others

[aarenz]

I have been a software developer type for 25 years and have always been in smaller departments and we get stuck in limbo. Not admin staff, not business operations, not accounting. Maybe it should be an all IT day, so that we can all play halo and eat pizza and drink mountain dew!

Re:Needs to be grouped with others

[Phybersyk0]

...Maybe it should be an all IT day, so that we can all play halo and eat pizza and drink mountain dew!

That'd be a bad idea, because you guys would eventually blame any problems we had whilst gaming together on the server, and we'd be bitching at you for the crappy code and debug logs (that you never read) filling up all the space in /var/tmp, and every user with shell access having their own instance of TOP or fucking GLANCE while not understanding that CPU cycles and memory aren't GASOLINE and don't disappear when you use them. :-) We should just stick to drinking booze.

Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[iamhigh]

Seriously... right now there are 5 comments above 1 and they are all bashing sysadmins in some way. I know you developers (oh sorry "software engineers") think you run the IT world, but you could give a little love to the guys who figure out all the work arounds to your shitty programming; to the guys that have to deal with giving you admin privileges just to see you make a standard build into something nearly unsupportable (and possibly running all kinds of rouge server stuff; to the guys that have to deal with all the problems you missed and let fly out into the field; and finally a thanks to us simply because we keep the internet connection up and running so you can bash us here on /.
/rant

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[phantomfive]

Oh yeah, great, it's not enough that you're begging for 'token presents' and have your own special day (and subtly wish for a nice car and pile of cash), you have to rag on the developers. Shitty programming, eh? Wow, I appreciate you so much more now. That's a great way to Win Friends and Influence People.

Maybe you feel it sucks, but you did choose it.....we don't have the sysadmins, but people who go around begging for appreciation are annoying.

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[beheaderaswp]

Wow- well said.

I happen to the the IT Director for a national charity.

I'm 43 years old, and the rest of the management team is 30 years older than me. These guys have no idea what I do. They gave me a mandate 5 years ago to bring the company up to date technologically. So I did that. And I'm still doing that.

About 6 weeks ago part of the management team showed up at my house on a Friday and fired me. It was surreal. I couldn't believe it.

Apparently- someone's poker buddy had trashed my work at a poker game- convincing several important people that I wasn't doing my job. And they fired me.

Needless to say it was one hell of a weekend while my wife and I scrambled to make sure bills would be payed.

By Monday things cooled off. And I was looking around for contracts and talking to a major linux vendor about coming on as a systems engineer. My phone rings and it's my former comptroller. He asks if I can meet my former management team for dinner. I wasn't so hot on the idea but since he is a friend I figured it was the right thing to do.

So I show up, and they offer me my job back with a massive raise, apologies, and major ass kissing.

Apparently, the so called "expert" who had trashed my work, had convinced them that the local computer store could do my job for them. The local computer store showed up and told the board that they were nuts for firing me, and they couldn't handle it. Then the "expert" lobbied for my job, took a look at the systems, and then decided he couldn't handle it.

So code monkeys aren't the only people with false assumptions.

But the upshot is that now the computer store offered me a nice fat contract to maintain their Linux clients in my spare time. And I still have my management position.

Karma is wonderful. Competence is king.

Although it would be nice to get a thank you for those 3am pager calls. That's what sysadmin day is about.

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[Limburgher]

I can code *and* fix hardware and OS issues. What the hell am I supposed to be doing? :)

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[Doug Neal]

The reason that sysadmins can be unpopular even with other nerds is because it's all too common for them to come across as having shitty attitudes, even if they are good at their job and do all the things you've just described. I've been a sysadmin for about 5 years and have worked both with developers that I'm supporting and with more senior sysadmins, so I'm familiar with both "sides" of the matter. Sysadmins are often in a fairly unique position in the organisations that they work for in that they are usually the only person there who can do certain tasks; everyone comes to them with requests, all day, some of them reasonable and some of them not; they have the final veto on lots of technical decisions, and they have their finger on the big red button both literally and metaphorically. This inevitably feeds the alpha-geek megalomania and bolsters the ego. Patience wears thin and fuses get short, and if you're having a bad day it's sometimes very hard to stop yourself snapping at your colleagues when you get a particularly frustrating request or interruption (which more often than not isn't even the other person's fault). I've been on the giving and receiving end of such behaviour before and either way, it's not pleasant for either party. A good sysadmin who's nice to people and not an egotistical dick* will get appreciated every day, not just on July 31st. If that isn't the case then you're probably working with dicks and might want to think about moving jobs.

*this isn't particuarly aimed at the parent, just a general observation.

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[hibiki_r]

You must be a lucky one with admins that actually try.

Around here, sysadmins ask for 3 weeks to make a blank PostgreSQL install, with a tablespace in the default mount point of a regular Linux server. When we show them that there's a major privilege escalation problem in their infrastructure and show them a proof of concept that changes the root password to 'maracas', they shrug. They switch authentication methods on the VPN and don't even send an email to tell everyone that their username and password have been changed. They need four tries before they can create a symbolic link. Yes, all of those are real examples from the last 6 months.

I've had the luck of working with a few amazing sysadmins over the years. I'd love to once again work with some sysadmins that made my Unix and networking knowledge seem minuscule. But the admins many of us have to deal with day in and day out make us programmers, which picked programming because we don't want to have anything to do with keeping systems in good working condition, end up requesting root access to management, because no matter how ineffective we are, we still are more effective at administration than the admins themselves.

Great admins should we cherished and appreciated. It's just that they are a lot rarer than they should be.

Re:Even the nerds hate sysadmins

[tnk1]

There tend to be a lot fewer sys admins in any place than there are developers. This usually means that the sys admin is the one who is forced to say "No" a lot due to competing priorities. Not to mention that we often have to tell people that there is a policy that they must follow, even if it makes their jobs harder.

At my workplace, there is a ratio of 1 sys admin to every 44 developers. I say "No" or "Wait" or "I won't do it unless you escalate it" quite a bit. It is easy to get walked over if you don't draw a line, and there is always someone who refuses to accept that.

Add that to the required 3AM calls, and you find that on any one day, a sys admin will act just like you would expect anyone else with an interrupted sleep interval to act: tired, crabby, and with very low tolerance for stupidity.

And let's not pretend that developers of a certain type don't have huge attitude problems as well, and frequently those are the developers who face some of the same challenges: long work days, annoying business people and imminent deadlines.

Re:A nice token gift and some public acknowledgmen

[Fyzzle]

Actually, the least I could do is nothing.

You sir, are ready to be a Sysadmin. Welcome.

Generosity

[DoofusOfDeath]

But seriously, we are asking for a nice token gift and some public acknowledgment. It's the least you could do.

... if you value email access.

Re:Generosity

[geekoid]

Not as much as you value your car.

Of course, we got nothin' on payroll.

USAF Holler!

[Anonymous Coward]

To any USAF CSAs reading this, thanks. You do a pretty good job as far as I've seen. I actually just called my group's CSA cell and thanked them. Also... umm... can you reset my ON/OFF function? The whenever the light goes out my computer stops working.

Re:USAF Holler!

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Real calls I've gotten:
1) "The printer stops printing when it runs out of paper".
2) "Can you make this report print darker?" (Attached to a fax of a xerox of a dot-matrix printout).

And the ubiquitous 2:30 A.M. call from the machine room operator:
Him: "Batch job xxx.yyy aborted"
Me: "What does the log file say?"
Him: "Let me check..."

It's today?

[elvum]

If /. had run this story yesterday, many more sysadmins would have been appreciated...

ironic

[Cormacus]

So this morning when I got into work we couldn't write to any of the home directories.

What about back then? (And now.)

[mountainman2307]

I don't quite recall a SysOp Appreciation Day.

To each as deserved

[SLOGEN]

Perhaps people do not appreciate what their sysadmins do because the sysadmin is not helping but hindering them?

My best experience ever with sysadmins was at DAIMI (now Department of Computer Science) at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Perhaps you can compare what you do to them?

They ran by the priciple of freedom under responsibility (traced, of couser :) The system was not down for any annoying period of time while I was there. Sysadmins were:

• Incredibly service-minded,
• Running stuf was allow-by-default, of course this was UNIX, so you could mostly trash your own stuff :)
• Active logging of who spawned what and used how much CPU/disk/net, and an email asking why when you were outside the norm
• Limited disk-quatas, but you could simply extend your own quota by running a command and giving a reason, the space was immediatly awarded to you for use -- if the reason was not good enough they would email you
• Allowed most anything as long as it didn't interfere with the other peoples ability to use the system.

System Administrator Appreciation Day

[Anonymous CowHardon]

Happy SAAD!

Yay sysadmins

[Kirby]

You should clearly get them a ThinkGeek gift certificate. $20 gets most sysadmins a T-Shirt they really would like.

-- Kirby, ThinkGeek programmer

(Okay, see, I'm biased, but I'm _still_ right.)

Re:Yay sysadmins

[atomic-penguin]

You should clearly get them a ThinkGeek gift certificate. $20 gets most sysadmins a T-Shirt they really would like.

-- Kirby, ThinkGeek programmer /blockquote

Hasn't there been a ThinkGeek promotion for SysAdmin day for the last several years? Like, buy $50 worth of stuff, get one of these SysAdmin shirts free sort of thing?

I can't seem to find one this year. What is up with that?

hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[neonprimetime]

but seems to me that ...

all developers could be sysadmins
not all sysadmins could be developers

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"...all developers could be sysadmins..."

No.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[foldingstock]

You obviously have not worked with many developers. I personally know some very bright developers, but I have also met my fair share of developers who are complete morons when it comes to basic administrative tasks. Maybe all that code turns your brain to mush. Maybe its a disease. Whatever.

Don't even get me started about dealing with employees/clients/customers. Sysadmins get put through hell and are expected to keep a cool head. Most developers get hot way to easy. ;)

Not all sysadmins could be developers. Not all developers could be sysadmins.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What world do you live in? I support developers that can't even figure out how to set up their terminal emulator.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[matang]

all developers think they could be sysadmins (the inherent problem in dealing with them). i'm happy to finally be in a position where we don't have any in house developers. in the past ten years, no stereotypable group (technophobes, self-taught-it-experts, etc) has been more frustrating to work with than developers. all they NEED is something to input text and something to compile that text but they end up with $5,000 worth of equipment, countless hours of tech support, and endless perks but they still bitch that they can't work because we won't give them admin access to install twitter apps or "ram booster" software.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[iamhigh]

Your arrogance is misplaced. I have coded entire apps to meet the needs of our IT department... I have had to learn SQL in more depth than I ever wanted because our line-of-biz app has the shittiest reporting features in the world; during this time I realized that programmers don't even make good DBAs.

While I might agree that there are more clueless windoze admins than clueless programmers per capita, there are many sys admins that know their stuff (which includes a decent understanding of all aspects of IT from MIS stuff to network to code to hardware).

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[neonprimetime]

Most developers get hot way to easy. ;)

per the responses i'm getting on my post (which by the way was simply humor ... i love my sysadmins), i think the opposite may be true! :-P

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, No.

There are plenty of developers that do not have the first clue about why the sysadmins are so anal about privileges. You do not want these people anywhere near business class servers.

And, yes, there are a whole bunch of sysadmins who would have a tough time as developers.

Neither walks on water.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[aztracker1]

I don't know, I've got about $2k worth of equipment here (maybe)... a decent laptop (2gb ram, 80gb HDD, core2 based. with a dock, and dual monitors. The hardware isn't worth as much now, or since I've been here though. Brought in my own unicomp keyboard and logitech mouse though. I've got local admin access, and haven't abused it. Though, I'm pretty security paranoid, I tend to be safer than most. I also run a lot of different hardware/software and oses at home. I'm a techie geek, and prefer development work over sysadmin work...

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[aztracker1]

True, I actually was doing development work while I had a sysadmin type day job, and was doing graphics work on the side... it was kind of a natural progression. I've kept up for the most part with the tech/os chores though. I just don't like doing it for anyone outside my home, and even then.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[QuoteMstr]

Sorry, but fuck you. Any component developer is more than capable of administering his own machine. If he can't even do that, then what business does he have writing software?

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[tnk1]

but seems to me that ...

all developers could be sysadmins

not all sysadmins could be developers

That's amusing. I find I write better code than many of the developers I come across.

AND I understand the value of documentation because I have run bad code without it that hasn't had development "support" for years.

A large number of Java developers, on the other hand, barely know how to run their IDE, let alone how to administer an actual server.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[Anonymous Coward]

A large number of Java developers, on the other hand, barely know how to run their IDE, let alone how to administer an actual server.

i don't use java ... but why would you need an IDE to develop? :-P

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[buysse]

I've dealt with enough developers that I'd say about 1/2 to 2/3 were competent, and some of those, while competent developers, didn't have anywhere near enough knowledge to be allowed to administer their own machine.

Of course, I'd probably say the same about 1/2 of the sysadmins I've worked with as well, and very few sysadmins have the knowledge to be competent developers. The higher percentage of incompetent sysadmins stems from not understanding security, or not understanding how to balance security with usability.

Note my use of the word knowledge -- most developers could be competent sysadmins, but don't have the knowledge base. If you're developing database-driven web applications using .NET, how likely are you to need to know details of filesystem ACLs, or how a rootkit may insert itself in to a OS kernel? How many sysadmins are going to know how to write (or even use) a database stored procedure, and more importantly, /when it's appropriate to do so?/

Unfortunately, most people don't have the wisdom to understand where their own knowledge ends. I understand quite a bit about a lot of topics, but I'm willing to let an expert (doctor, dentist, mechanic, athletic trainer, etc.) do their jobs. Why don't people have the same attitude about sysadmins? (Hint: I think it's because when you fuck up your car, you pay to fix it. If you fuck up your PC there's no direct financial penalty for you personally.)

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[buysse]

Need? No.

It sure does make life easier. 'Course, ctags and vim will do the same, if you know how to use it.

Re:hey guys, no more sysadmin bashing ...

[dbIII]

There are a million WTFs along those lines, but yes they SHOULD be able to admin their own machine, test machines and possibly some sort of dev network to keep them from destroying production networks.
The true horror of a sysadmin is a developer that has passwords on production machines and is just starting to teach themselves about routing or DHCP. Many developers learn by playing with things they do not understand to see what happens, which is not a bad thing unless it is coupled with zero responsibility for the production network and zero care factor for the other users on there.
If you take a half decent developer, make sure they care about things being up when users want them and get them to read Frisch or similar you'll probably end up with a half decent sysadmin. It comes down to understanding consequences - which is why sysadmins spend a lot of time keeping developers fingers away from power switches of production machines currently being used by hundreds of people.

Best system administrator ever

[Gnaget]

A big kudos to our system administrator, a good friend, who set me up with a special firewall rule to bypass our corporate filter, and thus I have access to non-work related sites such as /.

Hey To All Sys Admins

[furby076]

Stop playing your games and do your job. Fix my computer because I clicked on that I Love You E-mail sent from 125 people I don't know even though you told me not to (btw its' your fault). Oh and you need to install me the latest adob photoshop even though I don't really need it - but the guy in the art department has it. And I want windows 7 - I hear people have advanced copies of it so use your computer to computer illegal programs to download it for me. Also unblock facebook...what the hell - i need to be able to talk to my friends while at work. While I have your ear - since the boss can have two monitors and a brand new computer so can I - so stop being lazy befoer I report you. Finally the internet is acting stupid and i think it will go down *poof*

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[Anonymous Coward]

Every hear CEO appreciation day?

Yes, it's the day they pay the multi-million dollar bonuses.

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[armanox]

The only one up there that I am not familiar with is Engineer Appreciation Day.

Wholly crap that was funny!

[DRAGONWEEZEL]

I just wasted a ton of our bandwidth watching that.

What's sad is...

[rAiNsT0rm]

How many besides us admins even know about Sys Admin Day? I'd guess about zero. As someone who has done this job for about 12 years now, I can honestly say that my current job will be my last in this field when it comes to an end. I love how posts in this thread state "we knew what we were getting into when we took this job" No, I am a very hard-working individual who gets results and saves companies a lot of time and money. I'm not a hot-air admin who knows nothing but buzzwords, or a paper admin who has every cert known to man but no actual experience, I take a lot of pride in keeping current and being a well liked member of the company. I deserve to be treated like a professional with the same timeframes, respect, and courtesy afforded to every other role. Yet, so many just accept being treated like a doormat, put under constant intense pressure, underfunded, screamed at, etc. It happens to me too even with being friendly and liked. I've seen much worse on those who also do a great job but might not have the personal skills I do. Regardless it should not happen. It's not right. Companies see and treat IT as a negative cost with no real benefit and I think it is time to stop bending over backwards, giving insane timeframes, working 12+ hours, and on and on just to get shit on time and time again.

Maybe I'm just getting burnt out from IT but I have been in enough different industries that I know it is the same everywhere. From banks to universities to widget makers. No other job requires such constant pressure and re-education for so little in return. For such a smart group of people we let ourselves get trampled on and beat down to this point. I'll gladly step aside for an H1B Visa holder to take my spot for less money and I will go do a "regular" non-IT job for less money and normal hours. All jobs have stress and assholes and problems, but sys admin is just not worth it.

Re:A nice token gift and some public acknowledgmen

[QuantumRiff]

I would feel truly blessed if my "clients" would do nothing for a day. My day would be so nice and enjoyable, without any tickets, or emergencies, or questions I've answered 12 times already (and that's just to them!), not to mention a day without the "Wow $NameofPersonWhosDeskImSittingAt, you sure look different today! HAHAHAHAHAH" It was funny, the first time I heard it, in 1996. The 5 times a week since then, not so much...

Appreciation Day for All!

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never understood why IT workers think they deserve special thanks or praise. They are just doing their job like everyone else. Do you want a cookie every time you replace someones keyboard or fix their monitor? That is what you get paid to do!

The funniest are those IT guys that think they're smarter than, for example, the lawyers when they go help someone out in the legal department. If you were so smart than maybe you should've gone to law school rather than get your cert at the local CC!

I am a sysadmin and I appreciate the work IT people do but please, do you really think you deserve special praise or that you have to put up with more crap than others? Do we also need to have a marketing person, building maintenance, outreach coordinator, vice president appreciation day? No. Get over yourselves and be grateful you have a job that's not digging ditches.

some public acknowledgment?

[nurb432]

How about just be left alone for the day by the 'public' ?

Re: some public acknowledgment?

[Late Adopter]

Nice try, Mom, but you won't get me off the Internet *that* easy.

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[assantisz]

Doctor appreciation day: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/March/doctorsday.htm, Dentist's Day: http://www.holidayinsights.com/moreholidays/March/dentistsday.htm, National Pharamcist Day: http://holidayinsights.com/other/pharmacistday.htm and so on.

Re:A nice token gift and some public acknowledgmen

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe i'm going to have to try that next time i see one you in a cube around here. :) good times.

Ironic day

[hansoloaf]

since at the University I work, a lot of computers (Windows XP, Vista, and 7 RC) are freezing up due to ESET NOD32 for some reason. So the sys admins are very busy dealing with this all day. Actually been at it since last night. Great day for them :)

But what if your sysadmin is a total dick?

[spiffmastercow]

I keep having to do his job because he either doesn't know how to do it, or refuses to support any of the software I write because he doesn't want to read the documentation. Then he claims he has no documentation, which is a load of horse shit. Hmm, horse shit.. I think I found the perfect gift.

Re:But what if your sysadmin is a total dick?

[geekoid]

Start BCCing your supervisor and throw in bogus complaint back in his face, all BCCing your supervisor.

Re:But what if your sysadmin is a total dick?

[spiffmastercow]

I've been doing that for years.. Basically the issue is they can't find another person who has no social life (a valuable quality in a sysadmin), so they keep him on, and even coddle him. Management doesn't understand what a regular expression is, or why its bad that the sysadmin doesn't know what it is.

Re:A nice token gift and some public acknowledgmen

[just_another_sean]

As long as nothing includes reading /. I'm fine with that.

No thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah. Who needs their thanks? The joy in the job is in the abuse. In both directions.

Stop getting in my way then you may get something.

[mrboyd]

Let's burn some karma..

Most sysadmin I've met (yes fortune 500 included) are pedantic, computer illiterate slackers. I deal with you as a consultant so I probably get the worst treatment you guys can give. An basic example, currently my average delay to get a simple test email account set-up hovers around 6 hours after approval with a 50/50 chance that I end up being given access to the Administrator account on the exchange server and a 80/20 chance that I need to physically coerce the sysadmin into doing his job by standing behind him and breathing down his neck while repeating very quickly the name of all the higher ups actually waiting for me to produce result worth 2k/day. And no "we're very busy" does not fly if I see a "Facebook" tab in your taskbar. seriously.

Now for the one in ten sysadmin I've met who's actually competent in his job there are nine who in my opinion should get a serious talking to instead of a cookie for the sysadminday.

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as i know, there is a secretary day

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Professionals%27_Day

Heh..

[msimm]

I work with several programmers and their familiarity varies from alarming (barely can turn their own workstation on and off) to respectable (can install/update packages and know how to updates configs, understand server software). Perhaps fortunately, the senior programmers are also the ones with familiarity with server software and how it (directly) impacts performance of their own code (which means I work directly with them doing traces/etc to work out performance issues). The inexperienced on the other hand regularly treat everything outside the IDE as performance adding magic, which can explain any and all poor performing code they manage to dribble out.

Of course the truth is a good programmer has to understand the environment their code will work in, just like a good systems administrator will need to understand enough about the underlying code to develop a reasonable architecture and possibly explain some bottlenecks in the way the developers have designed their code, like the prevailent overuse of database backends for what is essentially simple storage, caching or buffering (works for small projects, but can cause massive scalability issues and [flakey/breakable] complexity as we increase the volume).

Sounds like some shops are different, but I've very much enjoyed the work I've done with programmers and some of the challenges they face are also the most interesting challenges we face designing reliable/redundant high-volume architectures.

A REALLY bad place to ask for appreciation

[SmallFurryCreature]

Lets face it, most of us here are probably a bit more clueed in then some MSCE drone who thinks unix is something they did to men in harems.

I get along fairly well with the windows admins because I am good enough to find work in places where I can run my own system, seperated from the meddlings of foolish admins.

There are no doubt excellent sysadmins out there, for my own sites I sometimes deal with an excellent admin who just keeps everything running smooth as silk, but your proffesion is most visible through the "reboot" and "no" and "what is ssh" crowd. Sometimes I have to deal with big companies and these places are overrun by sysadmins of the crappy kind. Still stuck on Windows XP and IE6 they limit everyone because doing even the tiniest amount of work would mean they loose the contract to the next lowest bidder and you know that NOBODY even remotely competent would work for a lowest bidder.

Sysadmins that want to be appreciated above the level of sewer rat have but one choice, cut the dead weight. Cut the people that think windows should be used for anything else then the as the desktop for sales and other lower forms of life and stop saying windows can run servers if you have to reboot more then once per decade.

As said, there are good sysadmins out there, but I am willing to say they are outnumbered 1 to 100.

Re:A REALLY bad place to ask for appreciation

[geekoid]

I would rite a scathing reply, but I see that the UNIX servers that the database is no has finished rebooting...again.

Re:A REALLY bad place to ask for appreciation

[buysse]

If you think we *want* to be stuck on IE 6, we don't. We don't really care. However, the developers wrote some asinine ActiveX shit that doesn't work on IE 7 or IE 8, and sure as fuck don't work on Firefox. Or, we're using PeopleSoft software that isn't certified on anything about IE 6, etc.

For XP? Well, by the time Vista was working well enough with the internal apps to roll out, Windows 7 was in beta. Why the hell would I go through upgrading everything to Vista just to have the same people turn around and want Windows 7 next week, but we can't afford to have any departments down for a day to reimage.

It comes down to the golden rule of the sysadmin -- if it's working, don't fuck with it.

Re:A REALLY bad place to ask for appreciation

[buysse]

I would write a critique of your spelling, but I don't think it'd matter. You must be a developer. ;)

(just kidding, really.)

Re:A REALLY bad place to ask for appreciation

[cfryback]

If you think we *want* to be stuck on IE 6, we don't. We don't really care. However, the developers wrote some asinine ActiveX shit that doesn't work on IE 7 or IE 8, and sure as fuck don't work on Firefox. Or, we're using PeopleSoft software that isn't certified on anything about IE 6, etc.

For XP? Well, by the time Vista was working well enough with the internal apps to roll out, Windows 7 was in beta. Why the hell would I go through upgrading everything to Vista just to have the same people turn around and want Windows 7 next week, but we can't afford to have any departments down for a day to reimage.

It comes down to the golden rule of the sysadmin -- if it's working, don't fuck with it.

I couldn't agree more! Though we don't use PeopleSoft, our major corporate software does *at random* change the default email program to Outlook Express, from Office Outlook! Migrating to IE7 was a huge PITA - because of the fact that the developers of said software insist that we run IE with a stupidly low security - thankfully it is just on "trusted sites" inside our network. Re-image? Yeah, well that is always easier said than done - we STILL have people that run "highly critical" SpreadSheets on their desktops - "Because it is easier.", They learn right smart after the said SpreadSheet corrupts or they blow away data from it, that we can't recover it from a back up - Because we don't back up PC's! (rant) SmallFurryCreature - "Lets face it, most of us here are probably a bit more clueed in then some MSCE drone who thinks unix is something they did to men in harems." As far as that statement goes - I have to disagree with the general tone that Unix/Linux admins seem to paint MS Admins with. I am yes a MS Desktop/Network admin (sorry no paperwork, I can't justify spending the money on exams), but I also know my way around *nix as well as we have several *nix based servers under our control as well. VMware is just one example of this. The thing that probably separates me from calling my self a *Nix admin, is that I have a little knowledge of how the thing works - And I know it, after all a little knowledge is a dangerous thing! But that being said, if there is an issue with our *Nix servers, I tend to do some research regarding the issue, because no doubt other people have run into the same thing. But not knowing the command line in MS - yes, then trying to do everything via GUI is just a unenlightened MS Admin. I tend to try and deploy packages via our Altiris server via .cmd file. (/rant)

Developers are *not* engineers

[Colin Smith]

developers (oh sorry "software engineers")

When you know how many connections per second your application can handle without failing you are an engineer.
When you know how much RAM per connection, per user. How much logging per connection, per user. How much bandwidth... You get the point. Engineers know when and how their systems perform and particularly when and where they break.

Developers on the other hand, don't know shit. They are crystal ball gazers. They have a vague idea that instantiating an object will use a bit of memory, but will have no clue how much or how many of them they can fit into system RAM. Developers delegate scalability and high availability to the RDBMS, or the OS.

There are vast numbers of developers out there calling themselves engineers but who are simply not... They think that an engineering degree makes you an engineer... It doesn't, and they aren't.

Re:Developers are *not* engineers

[spiffmastercow]

Well with all the high-level languages we have to work with these days, that's not suprising. I can tell you EXACTLY what's going to happen when I'm writing in C, but I don't know (nor do I really give a damn) what's going on when I'm writing in C#. It centers so much around the principle of "don't worry about what's going on under the hood" that its practically impossible to determine what IS actually happening. So these days I just worry about the O notation, and let the system deal with the rest.

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the professions have their own day some of them even whole week. Obviously all depends on a country as dates can change.
So let us have our day without ppl complaining and saying: oh why you have one but this profession does not...

And in case your profession does not have one, you always can try to create it, and see if it get acceptance.

Re:Stop getting in my way then you may get somethi

[geekoid]

FYI as a consultant, you are given the lowest man on the totem to work with.

I find it funny to watch you overpriced goons squirm.

Funny...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I don't feel appreciated.

Is this another Hallmark holiday?

Re:Stop getting in my way then you may get somethi

[Anonymous Coward]

lowest man

overpriced

Oh??????????

Reality Check - Not so good!

[orsty3001]

I just told my boss about this, not really expecting to get anything in return, just wanting to make conversation. I get this very long speech about how the American worker expects too much and that's one of the main problems with our economy. He gets more and more angry going on about how assembly line workers in Detroit are getting paid $40 an hour to put on lug nuts. A pat on the back would have been nice. Not looking for a cash bonus or a company car. Makes you really want to get up in the morning and try hard doesn't it?

Some appreciation...

[VoidCrow]

I 3 Systems administrators

*searches for naughty underwear*

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[slashmojo]

CEO appreciation day

That would be any day the CEO feels like it and generally involves a fat bonus and some high class escorts.. ;)

It already exists

[Anonymous Coward]

boom: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary%27s_day

Hey Administrator!

[Anonymous Coward]

Until you get my cute animated cursor and wallpaper installed on my workstation, there won't be any freakin' appreciation here, asshole.

Oh, and Solitaire is running slow over the network again. Why can't you fix this stuff?

Re:Stop getting in my way then you may get somethi

[myowntrueself]

50/50 chance that I end up being given access to the Administrator account on the exchange server

access to the Administrator account on the exchange server

exchange server

You lost all credibility right there.

These people you are dealing with? They are not sysadmins.

Exchange server sysadmin indeed. LOL

Re:A nice token gift and some public acknowledgmen

[Phroggy]

"Wow $NameofPersonWhosDeskImSittingAt, you sure look different today! HAHAHAHAHAH"

Oh thank God, I'm not the only one who hates that.

no new photos?

[Cronq]

Was hpoing to see new cool photos at SysAdminDay.com but these are still the same over last few years! crap

Hat off

[tgv]

A funny tautology, you don't see that often. Witty!

Re:I've got really bad news for you IT guys and ga

[Anonymous Coward]

Every hear CEO appreciation day?

Yeah, it happens every other Thursday when payroll has to break out the BIG forklift to move the dude's paycheck to the bank.

subject required

[Anonymous Coward]

did i miss a meeting ? when is janitor appreciation day ?

Re:Stop getting in my way then you may get somethi

[Jake Griffin]

He's saying that the consultant is overpriced... not the "lowest man"...

That is called cash bonus.

[jotaeleemeese]

All the rest is fluff.

We know our roles are vital for society.

[jotaeleemeese]

Thank you for pointing that out.